A Day in the Life of Lavet

On each episode in this series, we explore everything that inspires designers and fuels their drive and motivations daily.

Who is Lavet?

Wow! This is a very difficult question. I think I'm still trying to figure out who Lavet is. I surprise myself every day, trust me, but let me try and answer you.

I consider myself a problem solver, I solve problems in so many ways and one of those ways happens to be through design. Design has a very clear method of how to solve both simple and complex problems. I've seriously been in design for the last three years (three years already? wow I'm old now).

I started as a User Interface Designer then moved to a Product Designer and now I am a Service Designer. I've seen myself grow from a random person who designs interfaces to someone who is now focused on designing for social impact.

I think that's why I'm solving problems that mostly have nothing to do with tech.

Just so you know, right now I focus a lot on designing for the African continent, designing for things that are directly affecting our society, things like Education, Health, World hunger, ETC. I think that we have enough designers in tech already, we have clear methods of solving problems in tech, so it's time for designers to take the same mindset into other aspects of life, into things that are affecting real people and I think that's why I'm solving problems that mostly have nothing to do with tech.

Also, I love movies; I spend a lot of time reviewing movies, I think Netflix should hire me to be a critic because I really love reviewing movies with my friends. Yeah!! That's me in a nutshell I'm so many things but I think this will do for now. Oh! By the way, I’m from Kenya.

What's that favorite childhood memory that shaped up your creativity?

Hmmm. . .So, this is a very good question, I love it. Where do you guys get these questions though? Please please you have to be my plug, it is a really good question.

Growing up, we didn't have much financially--my mum is a single parent, and you know, we just did not have enough money to spare for me to get toys and to play like other kids so I had to come up with creative ways to enjoy my childhood. I’ll look for tools around me and other objects and just make something out of them.

I used to love football so I’d gather paper bags, plastic bags and make a ball out of them, I used to love jumping rope and my mum could not afford to buy me one so I’ll collect rubber bands and kind of like link them together and then make a rope out of it.

I’d say that my childhood shaped my creativity because I started solving problems by using what I had access to.

What lesson did you learn from your first design project?

I learned a lot of things, the prominent one being how to articulate my design decisions.

I remember when I started designing I was so focused on the UI. I focused so much on aesthetics, how things looked like, just because of this thing called “Dribbblisation of design”, where designers want to post their stuff on Dribbble to get some sort of instant gratification from the Design community.

As much as interface design is important, I think that new designers should also learn the vital role that function plays in design. To get buy-in from stakeholders, you need to be able to articulate your design decisions. For instance, when designing a landing page you should be able to explain the rationale behind placing a CTA button on top of the page and not in the middle.

So yeah, that was one of the most significant things I had to learn.

What's the least favorite step in your design process and why?

Hands-down the Implementation Stage. I am not really a good UI designer, still learning. I consider myself an amazing Researcher and amazing Service Designer and I love the process before the implementation because for me that's where the meat of the project is. I get to do research, I get to meet with users and laugh and get to ideate on random, crazy ideas, nobody is expecting you to be perfect.

I love the low fidelity stage, I love designing wireframes and all that, but when it gets to the real implementation stage-- where you know everything needs to be sharp, everything needs to look good, where you need to start working with developers, I just get really exhausted. I know there are people who love this stage because you get to see how your idea comes to life but for me, it's just too exhausting.

Please don’t get me wrong oh, I still do the implementation, I just don't enjoy it as much as I enjoy the other steps in the design process.

How does a typical "good" day for you go?

A typical good workday, actually, a typical weekday for me... I'm specifically saying weekday because a good weekend is very different for me, I'd rather spend time sleeping or watching movies all day.

This is how a typical good day looks like.

I'll wake up around 6:30 AM. I'm trying to be a morning person, I've been a night person for a very long time but I'm changing that now, and so far so good. So I’ll wake up around 6:30 AM and then the first thing that I do is my morning routine which usually consists of daily affirmations (I love talking to myself and just saying good things about me)

Next, I'll do a bit of stretching and workout for like 30 minutes then I'll take a very short shower, I don't believe in long showers( what is a bubble bath? I can’t relate). I think it's just trauma that I have from boarding school because they used to beat us up if you spend more than 10 minutes in the shower. You were supposed to shower quickly and go to class and that just kind of stuck with me, I still shower quickly.

I make my tea as I listen to good music, drink it and then take like 1 hour for personal development, I'll read a book or take a UX course or just a random course. Right now I'm taking a content creation course because I want to start creating design content on social media.

After my personal development session, I’ll then get started with work. The first thing that I will do is check my emails and Slack messages and respond to them, then do my daily stand-ups. I have to update my colleagues on my tasks which are usually at most like two or three tasks. I don't go beyond three tasks a day.

Once I do that, I'll start with the heaviest task, then I'll just do that the whole morning, and as soon as I finish (of course also taking breaks here and there) I'll take my lunch around 1 PM.

Meetings in the morning always make me feel disoriented and drained. I don't know the science behind it

I'll take a very clean lunch. Ideally, I'm supposed to have clean food and drink lots of water but sometimes it does not happen that way, most of the time actually, but a good day for me is when I have eaten good clean food and drunk a lot of water just to say thank you to my body.

Then after eating lunch, I will have meetings. I love having meetings in the afternoon just because meetings to me symbolize the end of the day. Meetings in the morning always make me feel disoriented and drained. I don't know the science behind it but yeah, I'm always drained so I'll put meetings in the afternoon just after finishing my big tasks for the day.

After the meeting, I'll probably work on my light tasks and finish them around 5 PM, that's when I close from work. Then I'll take some time to reach out to my friends, probably go out with a friend for dinner and just talk or hangout. I would also probably visit my family but right now during Corona, I spend more time talking to my friends and family through video calls.

Depending on how I feel, I’ll end my day with a lovely TV show (my comfort TV show is the office US) or listen to my heartbreak playlist. So, yeah, to me that’s a good day.

Oh, I forgot something, Jesus! Before I sleep I always write down my tasks for the next day. So that falls between after meeting my friends and before sleeping. I make sure that I write my tasks for the following day before sleeping.

What needs to happen for you to categorize a day as a "good" one?

Hands down my morning routine! If my morning routine does not happen it's going to be a shitty day. If I'm not able to do my daily affirmations, I am not able to stretch or workout then I’m just going to be a very sad and gloomy person the whole day.

How is remote work going for you and what's that secret hack that you think a lot of people don't know about?

I’m still trying to figure this out to be honest I just joined a new org and it's a fully remote company. This is my first time working for a remote company and I am kind of trying to adjust. I'm trying to figure out how to be as effective as possible and at the same time not burn out.

When you have that great relationship with your colleagues, your work becomes easier because now they know the kind of person that you are, how you work, what works for you and communication also gets easier.

So, what I will say is working for me currently is just good communication and checking in with my colleagues as much as possible. I've been scheduling ‘non-work’ meetings with my colleagues to just catch up with them over virtual coffee or lunch.

At first, it will be very awkward but you'll get used to it because they start opening up to you, you get to know them better and you form bonds outside work. When you have that great relationship with your colleagues, your work becomes easier because now they know the kind of person that you are, how you work, what works for you and communication also gets easier.

Is it okay if you tell us about where you work and what they do?

So I work with ALX Africa which is one of the three ecosystems under African Leadership Group. The other two are African Leadership University and African Leadership Academy which are a bit more famous than ALX Africa. I work at ALX Africa as a Service and Experience Designer, I wake up every day to go and design experiences for future African leaders. How cool is that! And I work with some of the most talented, brilliant minds that we have on the continent so I’m very lucky.

What’s that one fun activity that you miss doing pre-COVID?

I miss one-on-one in-person interviews with users. There is just something about being there with your users and observing their non-verbal cues, observing their environment, observing how they behave with other people around them, with you around them, that you can’t get from videos and phone calls.

I also miss hugging people. I am a very touchy person-- my love language is physical touch so I show love by hugging or holding hands. I can’t do that anymore, I really can’t, and hmmm ☹️. It saddens me but hopefully, everything will go back to normal and I can get back to hugging people and spreading love.

What are your unpopular opinions on design in Africa?

Go with your gut feeling! Sometimes we just have to, if deep down inside you feel like something is gonna work, design it and test it. There is no doubt that data and research is good but it’s robbing us the human instinct that has been used for centuries to develop brilliant ideas. So as much as you are using data and research to design features try and search within, what is your gut telling you? The good thing about this industry is that we are allowed to fail ambitiously, so don’t be scared to test your crazy-gut-feeling ideas.

Do you have any learning hack for anyone that is considering a career in design?

I will answer this in two ways. One is to learn the basics. I think it’s important for you to understand the fundamentals of Design before you jump into complex stuff. A lot of people will jump into Figma or Photoshop before understanding typography or how imagery works.

It’s important for a beginner to focus on understanding the fundamentals so that when things get complex later on in the design process, you can always go back to the fundamentals.

Number two, community! community!! community!!! It is important for you to be part of a community. When you are among people who have the same vision and think like you, it makes it easier to feel like you belong, and when you have that sense of belonging you excel.

It is really important for you to be a part of the community where you see people who are struggling like you and people who were in your shoes and made it. You cannot be what you can’t see.

In summary, I will say that community and understanding the basics are two key things for anyone who wants to get into design.

The Friends of Figma Lagos chapter is a community of Web Designers and other creatives Developers and Engineers inclusive who are committed to helping each other grow and scale their careers among other shared values. We also thrive to become the go-to place for everything related to design in Africa.